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"Just gonna stand there and watch me burn / But that's alright because I like the way it hurts" —Love The Way You Lie, Rihanna and Eminem

"No, she's asleep" are the first words Thalia hears when she wakes up, and she knows from years of experience that they mean nothing good.

They're Nico's words, followed by the muffled crackle of a voice on the phone. All she can tell is that it's a male voice, vaguely familiar.

She presses her eyes shut, trying to pick out the conversation as it moves away from the bedroom. Welcomes the darkness to hide her demons, push away her fears.

"I don't want your money," he speaks firmly, his statement harshened by the heavy sigh he lets out. "That was the past. This - this is my future."

Hades? She wonders.

"I don't care - you know what? Fuck off. Oh, you want - You know what, you can shove that up your ass along with your damn head, because if you think I'm doing anything for you - well, you're dead wrong."

A sharp thud as she imagines the phone slamming down onto a table. Shuffling noises - pacing, she guesses? - and then silence. She imagines him running a hand through already-disheveled hair.

"Who was that?" Thalia yawns, stretches and feigns just-woke-up grogginess. "Hades?"

"How much of that did you hear?" He frowns, brows furrowing together.

"Just the part with the swearing," she answers, lies, puts her arms around his neck, forehead against his. "Why?"

"No reason." He presses his lips to hers, quick and hard, seals the lie in. "Yeah, that was Hades. We kind of... Fought."

"I'm sorry." She doesn't know what she's apologizing for - only that she'll have to.

"Don't be." He pulls her close, chin resting on the crown of her head. "It's not your fault."

"But I brought him into your life, and now—" she's interrupted by him, pressing his mouts to hers.

Nico falls onto the bed, bringing her down with him. He's kissing her neck, lips parting from her skin just long enough to tell her, "Enough talking for this morning."

She can't say she disagrees. Even if, for reasons unknown, her thoughts turn to Luke, and the voice on the phone. HIs kiss seals her doubts in, but they are still there - curiosity burning through her, suspicion locked up inside of her like blood in a wound that's been cauterized.

:::

Guilt used to be his default emotion.

It's one he thought he'd turned off a long time ago, when he left his life of drug-induced highs and kill-induced lows, when he left the blood and poison and alcohol - but apparently, guilt has stayed.

It's burning a hole in him right now, holding his thoughts hostage, refusing to do anything but taunt him.

It's a brand that won't stop aching, a wound that won't stop throbbing, as he kisses Thalia, presses her lips to his, drowns out the pain with pleasure.

It's the fact that mercenary is a word he used to call himself, and no one knows that except his girlfriend's bastard of an ex (whose voice still rings in his ears long after Nico has hung up the phone.

"Fuck, don't stop." Thalia, nails down his back and bite marks in his shoulder and a tangle of black hair matching his own - they are the same, and he will not say anything of his plans because that is how he survived, with incessant paranoia. And he imagines - he knows she is the same way. She is a murderer, and his hands on her skin could just as easily hurt her as they could caress, but if they're on a downward spiral he's dragging her down with him.

"I won't. Promise." And it is the only promise he'll keep today, to drown himself in her, to bury himself in her, to block out the world because it will remind him of himself, all the pain, the world that wants to hurt both of them - and the world is him, really. It is pain and betrayal and lies and death.

He kisses her, and his eyes fall shut, and he drowns the pain in pleasure, but that doesn't mean it's disappeared.

It just means she's his new drug. Thalia is the high he's chasing, her and her sharp wit and bitter tongue and eyes that match his, hands and mouth and voice that seek his. She's a new ocean to drown in - but the old one will always call him back.

:::

Luke doesn't know why he cares.

He doesn't know why he keeps tabs on all of them, long after he's joined the Titans, long after he's been branded with their gang's tattoo (a letter K, golden and surrounded by flame. He's never asked what it stood for.) Thalia is the same as ever, blindly believing that once a killer, never a killer again, when she should know better. By now she should know that once you opened the darkness inside you, all you could do was keep it from swallowing you whole. You couldn't act like it would go away; you could feed the monsters inside you, but you could never slay them.

And that, he supposes, is where they disagreed. She thought she could save him. He knew they were both broken - and she was as dark as he was.

Then there's Annabeth, who is fine now, normal now, although recently he's seen her sucked back into the vortex, the gaping black hole, the potential supernova of a girl that he has always known and still loves, that is Thalia Grace. She's happy with Percy, normal and successful and acting like her demons won't catch up to her - and they won't, as long as she runs fast enough. But one day, she'll break, she'll slow, she'll fall the way Thalia will - and Luke will be right there, waiting for them.

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